AMHERST – Officials here described a weekend bacchanalia that made downtown Amherst seem more like a town ransacked by barbarians than the proud home of the state's flagship public university and one of the nation's top private colleges.

Foster was referring to this past weekend's "Blarney Blowout," a St. Patrick's Day-related celebration promoted by area bars that has morphed into a perennial party in Amherst. "This has become an annual thing," the detective said.

While police and public safety officials have come to expect the drunken behavior — replete with public urination and vomiting — they do not tolerate it. To that end, authorities made numerous arrests over the weekend into early Monday, including an incident involving a University of Massachusetts student and a Hadley man, both of whom were charged with operating under the influence of alcohol for an alleged high-speed chase on Amity Street.

Foster said the "in your face" revelry included fights, disturbances and other incidents, though much of the mayhem was confined to downtown Amherst and the Meadow Street area of North Amherst.

"If you're coming to Amherst with your wife and kids on a Saturday morning, I don't think that's something you want to be dealing with," Foster said.

Police said much of the drinking began Friday night and continued through the weekend, with some local students lining up outside downtown bars on Saturday morning to wait for them to open for the day.

Amherst Select Board Chairwoman Stephanie O'Keeffe said the bad behavior definitely doesn't help the college town's image, casting the schools and their many students in an unflattering light. "It's appalling to be downtown and to see that happening at noontime on a Saturday," she told the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

As the weekend festivities were winding down, police charged both Christopher Alviani, a 24-year-old from Hadley, and Courtney M. Brooks, a 21-year-old UMass student from Rochester, NH, with OUI after the pair, driving in separate vehicles, allegedly engaged in a road-rage incident on Amity Street in downtown Amherst early Monday. The incident culminated with a high-speed chase down Amity Street and ended on University Drive, where officers arrested both drivers, Foster said.

Brooks, in an email to The Republican, denied the "road rage" aspect of the incident, saying, "I was being followed by a coworker."

She was additionally charged with marijuana possession, illegal possession of pepper spray and other offenses.

Brooks claimed she had the pepper spray for self-defense purposes. "I am a 21-year-old college girl who was protecting herself by carrying pepper spray because my grandmother wants me to carry it," she said in her message.

It was not immediately clear if she's facing any disciplinary action from the university.

Meanwhile, Alviani also was charged with speeding and following too closely.

Foster said the drunken behavior associated with the weekend blowout was pretty much par for the course. "This is pretty typical for us in the springtime," he said.